VideoNot all “open” AI is actually open
TL;DR Most “open source AI” is only open weights: you get to take the cake home, but not the recipe.
“Open source AI” is one of the most misused terms in tech. The easiest way to get it: an AI model is a cake.
Closed models like ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini: you can only eat the cake at their restaurant. Open-weight models like DeepSeek, Qwen, Llama and Gemma: you can take the cake home and run it on your own computer, but the recipe stays secret. True open source, like OLMo or Pythia: cake, recipe and the full ingredient list. You could bake it yourself.
Plot twist: most of what gets called open source AI is really just open weights.
- 🔒 Closed: eat at their restaurant
- 📦 Open weights: take the cake home
- 📖 Open source: cake + recipe + ingredients
Sources: Open Source Initiative, Open Source AI Definition 1.0 (2024); DeepSeek-R1, Nature (2025); OLMo by Ai2.
